New details on the FBI’s domestic wiretapping program reveal it to be far more technologically sophisticated than experts believed.
FBI wiretapping rooms across the country, connected by a private network run by Sprint, gives officials direct access to the country’s telecom infrastructure.
Wired News reports that with a few clicks of a mouse, the FBI can now intercept land-line phone calls, cell phone calls and text messages, broadband, wireless, and internet streaming conversations on Vodaphone and other networks.
The surveillance system, called DCSNet, for Digital Collection System Network, pays telecom companies thousands of dollars for weeks of access to a user’s phone calls.
Once a court order is issued and a company turns on the wiretap, the FBI can download the communication data in real time.
Source:
“Point, click … eavesdrop: how the FBI wiretap net operates”
Wired.com, August 29, 2007